We Know What We Are (But Not What We May Be)
by thelifehypothesis
Summary: AU - Felicity, Thea, and Tommy tackle who they are and what they may be now that Oliver has returned from the dead.
1. Chapter 1

**…Thea…**

Thea didn't know how to do it. She held the knowledge that would irrevocably change the future of two people she loved. She had two options in front of her. She could keep the knowledge that was burning a hole through her brain to herself for a few hours – a few hours that would seal two fates, and one of those would ensure Felicity peace, love, and a lifetime of happiness. She knew Felicity better than she knew herself. If she kept this to herself, just for a short time, she could ensure that the world would be at laid Felicity's feet. But her fingers shook as she held on to the brass doorknob and she had to wipe the slick sweat off on her grey satin dress. She steeled herself and let the door swing open with a turn of her wrist.

Felicity sat on a bench, her image reflected back at Thea through a mirror. Her darkened eyes turned upward at the intrusion. Thea couldn't help but smile at the sight. Felicity looked stunning. Her hair swept up and loosely tied at the base of her neck with small white feathery flowers interspersed. White buttons dotted their path down the white lace that covered her back. The bench hid the rest of the dress, but Thea could see it in her head. After all, a maid of honor's job includes help picking out the dress.

Felicity's eyes were furrowed as she looked back at her. In a quick flourish she was up and at Thea's side. "Are you okay?"

A moment passed and Thea shuddered involuntarily. "It's just a little cold in here."

"Was it Moira?"

"Hm?" Thea picked up the bouquet on the table, pulling out a few flowers and plucking away at a few leaves so they sat just so. She remembered picking out the flowers. She would have pegged Felicity for something bright, eccentric, and endearing, much like Felicity herself, but instead an arrangement of white lilies from Felicity's favorite flower shop sat in her hand.

The flower shop sat at the edge of the Glades. The wedding had no budget and could have been on quite a grand scale, but Felicity had put her foot down and made sure the money was given to businesses that needed it and that it did not end up in the pockets of someone who had already filled theirs with millions. This is what Thea loved about having Felicity for a best friend; she always managed to keep everyone around her grounded. Money and high society did little for her and Thea thrived in the realism that Felicity brought to her life. She didn't know what these past five years would have been like without her and she owed her so much; she had to stay strong for a few more hours because Felicity deserved that much.

So, when she answered her question properly, Thea did so with a smile on her face. "Yeah, it was mom. Just wondering when I'd be home."

"Oh. Well, the civil ceremony shouldn't take more than 30 minutes, but if Moira needs you back I'm sure we can rustle up another witness."

"Are you kidding? I'm not letting you get married without your maid of honor. Whatever it is can wait an hour. Now come on, let's get you married and off on your honeymoon."

"Ha. The honeymoon is going to have to wait. The IT department at QC is in an abysmal state and I'm saying this with a heavy heart because god, I love Walter, but the man has no knowledge of what an IT departments needs to run efficiently. He hires ten poor technicians where he could have hired one great one, and now your favorite IT girl has to go and fix the mistakes of the idiots who can't tell apple from android, forcing me skip out on all honeymoon happenings!"

Any other day, Thea would have listened to Felicity's ramblings with affection because the girl made her laugh like no one else, but today all she could hear was the forceful beats of her own heart and her mother's words telling her an impossible truth. Her heart ached and she yearned to be elsewhere and at the same time, nowhere else. She sat down on the bench Felicity had vacated, unaware Felicity had stopped talking minutes ago. She tried desperately to bring herself back to the here and now, but she was conflicted and hurt and overjoyed and scared and everything all at the same time and then again, she felt nothing at all.

"Thea," came Felicity's steady voice as she placed a hand on Thea's shoulder. "I know that this isn't how you expected things would play out and I know I'm asking for a lot. It's a difficult spot to put you in so I just wanted to say how much I appreciate you being here and doing this. Married or not, you will _always_ come first."

Thea pulled Felicity into an embrace and held on to her tightly as she let out a deep sigh. "God, I love you so much. He really doesn't deserve you, but then again I'm not sure anyone ever would."

Felicity rolled her eyes. "You have to say that, you're my maid of honor."

"I don't have to say anything. It's just the truth. Anyway here, I brought these, I figured these shoes would go with the dress much better than the silver ones."

"Oh those are perfect! Help me will you? This dress makes it impossible to bend… at any joint. One day you will have to remind me why I picked this one."

"Because you look stunning."

"I guess not being able to sit without fear of tearing the fabric is a small price to pay."

Thea let out a snort. "You'd never cut it in my world you know that? You're just lucky you found someone who doesn't care… much."

Thea quickly flicked her eyes upward and mentally chided herself. Sometimes Felicity's lack of filter was contagious.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to say that. I didn't mean to imply that he would mind if you couldn't…"

"Hey, don't worry about it. You are right. I'm all left feet and whatnot. I get it," Felicity interrupted, the warm smile on her face letting Thea know all was forgiven.

A sudden draft in the room caused them both to swing their heads toward the doorway. In it stood Tommy Merlyn looking disheveled with one hand on the doorknob, and the other holding Felicity's phone.

"The alerts on your phone wouldn't stop. I thought it might be important so I checked. And…"

Thea's heart clenched. It was too late. She should've checked for the phone. She should've found a way to keep Tommy out of the loop too. But she wasn't thinking. She had tunnel vision and all she could think of was Oliver.

"What's going on with you two?" Felicity asked, taking the phone from Tommy's hand.

Thea watched as Felicity opened her alert tabs and almost dropped the phone in the process as she scanned the headlines. Long ago, when she was studying at MIT Felicity had sent up alerts for Oliver Queen, knowing that if they went off, he would need her and she would be there. Felicity was not only intelligent, but a brilliant friend too. But those alerts had not gone off in more than four and a half years and Thea could practically see the gears turning in Felicity's head.

Thea's vision began to blur, her eyes a glistening mirror of Felicity's.

"Is this true?" she asked, the question pointedly directed toward Thea.

And it was. Oliver Queen had been found. Oliver Queen was alive.

**…Felicity…**

Starling City General was a modern building with paneled glass and brushed-steel beams. The Queen Family Wing had been originally donated for purely PR purposes so as to distract the people from Oliver's infamous public urination scandal. The wing had served its purpose.

Felicity could still picture the photographs from Oliver's public attrition. The photographer had managed to catch a particularly candid moment of Oliver making the children in the cancer ward laugh. She remembered wishing that more people saw Oliver the way she saw him – as a kid who was lost, but who had what mattered most, a good heart. It was then that hospitals, a somber and dreaded place for most people, had become a place of hope.

So as she stood there on that day, she couldn't help but marvel at the serendipitous turn of events. She watched as Thea and Tommy sat on the plastic benches as they waited, the former with fists clenched in her hair and the latter obsessively checking his watch, and for the first time, in what seemed like a very long time, she was filled with hope.

"Can I see him? What did they say? Is he okay?" Thea had vacated her chair and rushed toward Moira before Felicity could even process the events.

Felicity had never seen Moira Queen cry; not even when Robert Queen and her son had disappeared somewhere in the South China Sea, but the woman's eyes were glazed over as she responded to her daughter, and Felicity imagined that this is the closest she would ever come to seeing the Queen matriarch cry.

"He's been through a lot."

Felicity waited with baited breath.

"But he's okay. He's coming home."

Felicity let herself go slack against the wall behind her and let some of the tension drain from her shoulders.

As Moira let Tommy know, in no uncertain terms, that this was a special time for the Queen family alone, Felicity's eyes once again shifted toward Thea.

It was a struggle to recall a time without the dynamic brother and sister duo. They had crept in like fog in the night and cemented themselves in her life like no others before them. First Oliver, then Thea, and finally Tommy, Laurel, Sara had trickled slowly through the walls she had built up and they integrated themselves so deeply into every aspect of her daily life that to remove one thread would be to unravel the tapestry of her life. That's the closest explanation of the last five years that Felicity could ever come to – an unraveled life. They were all threads seeking to become whole – to find some rhyme or reason to their lives. Missing Oliver meant missing their most basic and fundamental stitch.

In truth, they had all eventually found their own ways of existing without him, but none of them could truly _live_ without him. Life had continued on, albeit a colorless version.

Thea soon disappeared behind the double doors after Moira, but not before a reassuring hug from Felicity. She held on to the emotionally wrecked teenager for a few moments whispering encouragements before she let her go.

"I know this is hard, but you can do this Thea."

Felicity cupped Thea's face with both hands, meeting her eyes unflinchingly and hoping to give her as much strength as she could muster.

"Thea Queen you are one of the bravest and strongest people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. You _can _do this and I'll be there if you need me, just say the word. Okay?"

With a nod of her head and a quick hug from Tommy, Felicity watched Thea disappear behind the doors that housed Oliver Jonas Queen.

**…Tommy…**

Soon after, Tommy and Felicity found themselves at a café down the street from Starling City General, neither of them wanting to be too far away should Thea need them. They picked a spot by the window in view of the main doors, where throngs of media had congregated to catch a glimpse of Starling City's prodigal son. Felicity and Tommy stood guard with mugs of coffee in their hands, neither of them knowing quite what to say to the other – companionate silence would have to suffice.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed until he finally broke the silence. He had been lost in thought for much of the day, but Felicity's ring bare hand had not escaped his notice.

"You're not wearing your ring, Smoak," Tommy remarked, his eyes never straying from the doors of the hospital.

"Not sure I have one to wear anymore, Merlyn."

Tommy shut his eyes tightly as he replied, "Please tell me he didn't call off the wedding because of Oliver."

"Thea must have seen this coming from a mile away. I think that's why she was waiting to tell me until it was over and done with," Felicity wagered, her cool composure unflinching.

"I am really sorry Smoak," Tommy offered sincerely, reaching out with both hands to grasp hers.

Felicity withdrew her hands and folded them in her lap.

"Can't really blame a guy for wanting to call things off when his bride-to-be is running off on their wedding day to be at another man's side."

"Felicity…"

"I think… I think that, even if I knew well in advance that he would call the whole thing off, I would have still made the same decision."

When Tommy began to give her a pitying look, she cut him off once again.

"Thea and Oliver will always come first. He deserves to be with someone who will put him first and as much as I thought that I could be that person, I can't."

Tommy frowned as he allowed himself to process what Felicity was saying. He wasn't surprised by her answer. Thea was like his sister too, she would always come first. He was however surprised that Felicity had finally allowed herself to acknowledge that Oliver was up there too. This was definitely new.

Quick short buzzes made him turn his attention to his phone which lay on the table, Thea's face plastered on the screen.

"Thea? What's going on?"

"Is Felicity with you?" With a few taps on the screen Felicity connected to the call.

"Yeah she's here."

"I don't think I can do this. I want to come home," Thea cried out, between heavy sobs.

"Thea… It's Oliver…" Felicity began.

"You don't get it. When I walk in there… the old Ollie will be gone. Whoever is in there will be a stranger. I'm… I'm never going to get _my_ Ollie back and I'm not ready to lose him, not again," Thea explained, her voice thick with ache.

Tommy's heart broke as he listened to Thea; she put into words what everyone was feeling. The difference was that Thea didn't get to process her feelings before facing her fears.

"What can we do Thea?" Tommy asked.

"Please just let me come home for one more night. And tomorrow I'll go back and be what everyone needs me to be, but right now I just want to come home."

It didn't take very long to get Thea out of the hospital without attracting any attention from the media. Tommy and Oliver had spent enough time together engaging in less the becoming activities to figure out the ins and outs of flying under the radar and avoiding significant amounts of media scrutiny. It was hard to imagine what the public opinion would have been had they not developed ways of hiding the majority of their likely illegal and definitely scandalous escapades.

When they finally made it back to Felicity's townhouse no one was surprised to find Tommy spending the night as well. This had become a common occurrence in the years after Oliver had been lost at sea and presumed dead.

At first, it had been just Felicity and Thea as they sought comfort in each other. He didn't know much about what went on during that time, but from what he gathered Felicity had lost her very best friend and Thea had lost not only a brother and father, but her mother as well. Moira had shut herself off from the world, which included her own daughter. As weeks went by, they were both, in their own ways, untethered and lost, and when the time came to legally declare Oliver's demise, they found the strength they needed in each other.

While Felicity and Thea had each other Tommy had no one. For the world, Tommy had lost his partner in crime, or at best, his best-friend. But the few that truly knew him understood that he had lost much more. He had lost his whole world. His mother had been taken from him when he was young, whereas his father left willingly to seek something else, which Malcolm supposedly found when he disappeared for a few years after. All Tommy had was Oliver.

After Oliver was legally declared to be deceased, the media attention shifted to Tommy's spiral into oblivion. Surprisingly, it was Felicity that reached out to him. Thea had been lost to her own grief and Felicity, as she had once said, could only think about how much it would have hurt Oliver to see the people he loved so utterly broken.

Tommy resisted at first. He and Felicity had spent little time together in the past. He knew of her, they had gone to high school together after all, and he knew that she and Oliver had been somewhat close, but that was where his knowledge of Felicity ended. Despite what little Tommy knew of Felicity, he always held close the suspicion that his Ollie wasn't her Oliver. They were two different people entirely and he would have been lying if he said he hadn't been jealous of their closeness.

But as time went on he learned things about Felicity Smoak, the first of which was that the woman was relentless. She found a way to always show up when he needed her (to bail him out of jail) and even when he wanted nothing to do with a world in which Oliver Queen did not exist. He couldn't count the number of times during the first year after Oliver disappeared that she found him in the back alley of a club covered in the stench of his own sickness, took him home, cleaned him, fed him, and gave him a place to lay his head.

Sometimes in the morning, he would see Thea asleep in Felicity's spare room, but he never questioned it. In fact, he didn't speak to either of them for weeks – after all, there was nothing left to say. So, he would shut the world out and find himself in another club and at the bottom of another bottle.

Eventually, he stayed for breakfast. A few months after that, he began to frequent Starling City's nightclubs a little less and visit Felicity and Thea a little more. He didn't know when it happened, but it struck him one night as Felicity and Thea sat on either side of him painting their nails and watching a show about a man and a travelling telephone booth, that somehow, together, they had found a way to move forward.

Thea and Tommy had spent many nights sleeping over at Felicity's in the past, but tonight no one slept. And when the pink of a new morning sun began to creep into Felicity's living room, they knew they had all run out of time. It was time to brave whatever Oliver they may find – and if grief for their lost Oliver is what lay ahead, then they would face it as they had before – together.


	2. Chapter 2

The day Oliver came home was a crisp autumn day almost five and a half years to the day he went missing. The leaves had just taken on their telltale colors, causing the ground of the Queen mansion to be transformed into a kaleidoscope of fall colors. Thea couldn't help but marvel at how today the reds of the leaves were more rich, the yellows a bit brighter, and the blue sky more vibrant. It was as though new life had been breathed into her surroundings. And although the logical part of her mind told her that such immense changes were unlikely – it was all real to her.

Thea sat on her bed and waited, staring at the long driveway that snaked through the grounds. Her heartbeat strong in her chest – the staccato of hope renewed. The last time she had found herself in this position, she couldn't have been more than five years old waiting for her brother to come home from school. The waiting had always driven her to the very brink of excitement and kept her dangling over that precarious edge. The prospect of all the adventures to far away lands yet to be discovered, of daring rescues, treacherous sword fights, and of mad dashes from giants and trolls, spurred her to run laps of the mansion just to exert the abundant pent up energy. The idea of her favourite person returning to her after an impossibly long day away from her drove her to contract 'the crazies' as Raisa affectionately called it. Today, there was no running; there were wringing hands, deep breaths, and a pounding heart.

Thinking back, she wasn't sure how she made it to this moment. For too long her life, the world even, seemed to come to an abrupt standstill and each moment that passed with it brought an agony she could not comprehend, much less bear. In the blink of an eye, she lost not only her brother, but also her father. That was not something she was ever supposed to face. For so long she believed that the universe had made some grand error; she was sure she had been accidentally handed someone else's fate. This was not her life. Everything was _so incredibly wrong_.

It was a such a strange thing; as time went by she started to forget details she so desperately wanted to remember, to keep close to her heart – the smell of her father's cologne, the exact shade of blue of Oliver's eyes. Maybe it was some cosmic joke that she would forget the things she wanted to remember and remember the things she wanted to forget, like the day she finally accepted her own fate as her own.

She had been sitting in Oliver's favorite car, the Audi R8 she had helped pick out for his 21st birthday. It was one of the only places she still felt safe and close to him. She had the seat way back such that she was laid horizontal staring up through the sunroof at the passing clouds. The stereo was cranked and her drug of choice kept the real world at bay for sometime.

She remembered that day in harrowing detail. She still remembered the song that was playing, an obtrusively happy indie song that was very unlike Oliver, or Laurel for that matter. At the time, she wrote it off to Oliver's flavour of the month – Sara Lance – although, in retrospect, it didn't really fit Sara either. The words of the song were a little foggy to say the lease, more a side effect of losing herself in her own oblivion than poor memory.

In those early days she spent a lot of time in that car, an attempt to keep the ache buried for some time. She had tried to seek solace in other places like Oliver's room or her father's study, but that was met by an irate Moira Queen, who would last out accusing Thea of marring all that Moira had left of her husband and son. After that Thea simply took to the Audi, but sometimes she would enter that which Moira considered sacred ground, just to see if some semblance of the old Moira, her mother, still existed somewhere inside the hollow shell of a woman Thea sometimes saw in passing.

So when Raisa rapped gently on the window, Thea wasn't exactly surprised. She spent a lot of time in this car. Thea turned the stereo system down and adjust the seat back to the way Oliver always had it set before letting herself out of the car.

"Ms. Thea," Raisa spoke, her voice taking on a heavier Russian lilt that normal, a sure sign that something was wrong.

"I think you should perhaps see your mother."

Thea looked at the woman skeptically, trying to sort out how much of what she was perceiving was real and how much was her drug induced haze. For all she knew, this Raisa may not be the real Raisa, or, real at all. As nonchalantly as she could, Thea poked Raisa in the shoulder. She was real alright and so were the tears in her eyes as she gently cupped Thea's face.

"Oh Miss Thea," she cried.

A terrible sense of dread coiled in Thea's belly as she pushed past Raisa and walked through the doors of the mansion following the unmistakable sound of shattering china.

Moira stood in the middle of the dining room. Walter Steele, the interim CEO and only person that could ensure Moira Queen ate three square meals a day, was holding her by the waist, his hand pushing hers down by her side, stopping any more of the china from flying. On the other end of the room stood the QC lawyer looking for all the world as though he wanted to make a run for it.

"Not that I don't enjoy a good china smashing party myself, but maybe someone would like to tell me why Mr. Arnold looks like he's about to wet himself," Thea said, trying to unfurl the knot in her chest.

Mr. Greg Arnold was the head honcho in charge of all of QC's legal affairs and a close family friend. At the moment looked none too impressed with Thea's comment. He raised himself to his full height of a staggering 5' 3", his worried frown now a scowl directed at Thea.

"Moira, put down the plate. Remember that this is Greg. He never let you or Robert astray before and he isn't going to start now. Just put down the plate and let's talk about this," Walter said.

Thea sat down at the dining table and she was glad she did because as Moira uttered the next words, Thea's world fell apart and she spiraled – lost to everyone and everything.

"Mr. Arnold feels it is time for your f-father and Oliver to be put to rest."

The day after Robert and Oliver Queen were legally declared deceased, all hope was lost, and Oliver's Audi was ceremoniously wrapped around a telephone pole.

Thea rubbed at the scar on her wrist that she had gotten from that fateful day. If she closed her eyes she could still feel the jarring pain of the gear shift embedding itself into her wrist. It had taken months of therapy to restore function to her hand; even now she only had 90% of her range of motion back.

The morning after the accident, Thea expected to find her mother by her side, but instead she found the riot of colour that was Felicity Smoak. Thea let out a snort, the laugh causing an abrupt surge of pain throughout her body.

"What are you doing here?" Thea asked, her voice as rough as sandpaper.

Felicity reached over and handed Thea a cup of water. Sighing, she sat down in the uncomfortable looking chair by the bed.

"I could ask you the same thing you know."

Thea took a sip of water that did little to quench the dryness and handed the cup back with her good hand.

"Where's my mom?" Thea asked, ignoring Felicity's comment altogether.

"Trying to get you out of a DUI I imagine."

"And how's that going for her," Thea asked, rolling her eyes.

"I would think pretty well since the evidence has very strangely vanished from the SCPD database," Felicity replied, feigning surprise all the while.

Thea turned her head to look at Felicity. "You didn't have to do that for me. I did the crime. I should probably do the time."

Felicity waited and looked at Thea, who couldn't help but squirm under the scrutiny.

"It wasn't all for you. Don't get me wrong, I mean it was like _mostly_ for you. And I little bit for me too in a way. Oliver would kill me if I let anything happen to you."

Thea smiled sadly. "Well you don't have to worry about that. Oliver is dead."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't put the occasional haunting past him," Felicity said as she reached out to hold Thea's hand.

"How bad was it?" Thea asked.

"Well the Audi is in car heaven, if such a thing exists. Although, come to think of the activities that the car has been involved in, it's likely in car hell."

"Yeah, probably," Thea replied.

"You still haven't told me why you're here," Thea pointed out.

"How about because my friend was hurt in a car accident and I was worried?" Felicity offered.

Thea didn't doubt the sincerity in Felicity's voice, but it had been a long while since anyone cared about what happened to her, including herself.

"And you got past security how?" Thea probed.

"What's with the 20 questions?" Felicity asked.

"What's with you deflecting?" Thea retorted.

Felicity grumbled under her breath, something to the effect of "I thought the drugs were supposed to keep you loopy for longer."

"Don't you dare think about deflecting again," Thea pushed.

"Fine. I may have… used some questionable tactics, but I swear nothing illegal! Well, apart from destroying police evidence?" Felicity reasoned unconvincingly.

"Ollie sure did rub off on you," Thea mused out loud.

"I think it was impossible for Oliver _not_ to rub off on the people around him, but I don't think that this was the kind of rubbing off he wanted for you."

"Save the lecture Felicity," Thea snapped, using anger to distract herself from the tears that threatened to spill. "Just tell me when I get out of here."

"I don't know Thea. Its going to be a while, your body took a pretty big hit and you're going to need time to recover."

Thea could see how Felicity had managed to stick around Ollie for so long; she had the patience of a saint. Anyone who spent that much time with Oliver was sure to need it.

"Ms. Smoak is correct," came Walter's British accent. "There will be a prolonged stay with some significant physical therapy."

He smiled warmly as he walked up to her bedside. "How are you feeling my dear?"

"Like I wrapped my car around a telephone pole," Thea replied smartly.

When Walter turned his attention to Felicity, his eyebrows raised in surprise or amusement, Thea was not sure.

"Always a pleasure to see the newest member of QC's IT department," Walter offered.

Thea pleasantly surprised by the news threw Felicity a look that let her know she had some more explaining to do.

"Well, well, well, I guess congratulations are in order!"

Felicity rolled her eyes and replied with a smile, "I'll let you buy me a pint of mint chip when you can walk yourself to the store again."

"You've got yourself a deal."

Turning her attention back to Walter, Thea asked, "Is my mom stopping by?".

"Ah Thea," Walter began, reaching one hand back to rub his neck nervously, "she has just had a pretty overwhelming day and she was so worried, she's just take some time to recuperate."

"She's not here." It was a statement, not a question. And the deafening silence that followed told Thea all she needed to know. Even coming close to losing her daughter was not enough for Moira to start acting like a mother – a mother that Thea needed but would never have again.

Days went by and then weeks. Moira never did come. The most Thea got was an occasional phone call – a check in, likely one of Walter's doings to make sure Thea didn't feel completely abandoned by her mother, but sadly it was too late for that in Thea's eyes. And, as it often turns out in life, by the time Moira pulled herself together enough to be there for Thea again, Thea found that she didn't need her after all.

The only constant and sure thing in her life from that moment had been Felicity. She had been there every day of those three dreadfully long weeks when Thea had nothing but time and her thoughts. At first it began with Felicity spending her lunch hours with Thea. They would sit and talk about mostly inconsequential things like the latest computer bug to besiege the QC sytems or like the sordid soap opera that was ongoing between someone from the janitorial staff on 14 and the very married mailroom attendant on 17. Although, to Felicity's credit, they probably wouldn't have been talking about it if they alleged individuals had managed to keep their sexual goingons away from the servers on 12.

In the early days they steered clear from that which they nicknamed 'the heavy'. Neither of them were ready to navigate through the minefield of processing their grief, not in a healthy way at least.

When Thea was finally let out of the hospital and ready to return home, it was Felicity that drove her home. And when hours later the silence of the mansion became a riptide that threatened to drag Thea into its murky depths, it was Felicity's door at which she stood and it was Felicity's home, now hers too, at which she remained.

The telling click of the front door opening broke Thea out of her reverie and before she knew it, she was running through the hallways of the mansion - down the east wing and around the corner until she found herself at the top of the stairs staring down into the foyer. "Ollie," Thea heard, but her voice sounded unlike her own. All too suddenly, and yet not fast enough, she was in his arms, the force with which she collided into him knocked the air out of both of them. They stood there holding each other as if they were holding on for dear life.

"You're home."

"I' am," said Oliver.


	3. Chapter 3

**…Tommy…**

Five years ago this wouldn't have been an uncommon sight. In fact, it would have the most natural thing in the world. Tommy Merlyn, in a Starling City bar well before cocktail hour with a strong dose of liquid oblivion in his hand, would have been as sure of a sight as Oliver Queen pissing on a cop on a Saturday night. These days, truth be told, Tommy Merlyn was a man of mystery. He had disappeared of Starling City's social circuit and quietly slipped into the shadows of Merlyn global.

With a slow turn of his wrist he watched the amber liquid in the glass swirl. He drained the tumbler in one swift motion and placed the glace upside down on the bar. The bartender, a disgruntled looking two hundred pound lumberjack with tattoo sleeves and thick black rimmed glasses approached Tommy with a scowl. He picked up Tommy's glass and wiped down the bar underneath with the bar rag that lived on his shoulder.

"Really Merlyn? Come on now. I know Felicity did not waste years of her life picking your sorry ass up off a bar floor for nothing," came the all too familiar voice.

"Please, don't talk about Felicity. I might just vomit."

Tommy turned his head to look over his shoulder and watched Laurel Lance take a seat, her one eyebrow raised in amusement. Her crisp chocolate brown power suit made for an odd sight in the little dive that Tommy found himself in.

Laurel turned to the bartender and ordered a tonic water. Her fingers drummed a steady staccato against the wooden bar top while she waited.

"You wanna talk about it?" she said, breaking the silence after an unbearably long and admittedly awkward length of time.

"Not with you." Tommy paused. "How'd you find me anyway?"

"You forget I know you better than anyone else."

"That delusional nature of yours isn't going to help your law career."

"Look I know you're mad at me and that's fine. But this," Laurel said as she pointed to the drink, "this isn't about us."

"How could it be? After all there is no us."

Laurel drew a steadying breath through her nose. "Tommy, this is about Oliver. If you want to talk _that_, I'm here for you. You've got to know that. And if you really want to drag up the old 'us' conversation you can save your breath, you and I both know that you're not a one woman type of guy."

Tommy let out a derisive snort as he took a sip from his glass.

Laurel let out a frustrated breath. "At least tell me what I can do for Felicity.

She hasn't been picking up my calls."

That's when he felt it – the sharp pain in his chest that reared its ugly head at the mention of Felicity's name.

Felicity may have been the purest person he had ever known. Not that Felicity didn't toe the line of grey. She did so, often, especially in her years of friendship to Oliver. Too many incidences of 'misplaced evidence' and 'dropped charges' peppered Oliver's criminal record and although Felicity never admitted it, Tommy knew it was all thanks to her. But, despite the occasional bending of rules, Felicity's moral compass always pointed due north, and she lived by a strict code that too often included sacrificing her own happiness for those she loved. She was a good person. Too good. And once again, life had forced her hand, used her good against her, and stripped her of a future of wedded bliss.

"Find a way to get her money back for the wedding dress?"

Long perfectly manicured fingers covered the top of his glass interrupting his next sip.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Laurel asked.

Tommy replied with a look that cut Laurel to the core.

"Did she?"

"He did."

Laurel pulled the glass from Tommy's hand and drained the contents of the glass with a single swallow before signaling the bartender for one of her own.

"I've got to hand it to Ray. I didn't think he would bow out of the race so gracefully," Tommy said, before continuing, "or with such cowardice. I haven't quite made up my mind about that just yet."

"It's futile trying to compete with Oliver," Laurel stated as if it were a law of physics, an unchangeable fact of life.

"Don't I know it."

Tommy watched Laurel's shoulders slump forward dejectedly. A part of him knew if was a bit of a cheap shot. The words were hollow and meaningless for Tommy, but he knew there would be the smallest of stings for Laurel. For a tiny second, for the briefest moment in time, Tommy wanted Laurel to feel what he felt, but it would never be enough. It couldn't even come close to the anguish of unrequited love that always seemed to follow him.

The saga that was Oliver and Laurel was a dynamic and volatile one, chockfull of mistakes of young, reckless lust, and at the best of times, unstable. Whether if all fell apart dramatically, which was its typical fashion, or amicably, which was laughably rare, Tommy was always there to put all the pieces back together for the two of them. Looking back, he wouldn't change anything. They were two of the greatest loves of his life, and for most of his younger years, they were the only ones that mattered to him, and if he was being completely honest, the only ones that remotely gave a shit about him. Tommy loved Oliver. And Tommy loved Laurel.

But as it happened, late nights of throwing darts at Oliver's face (for Laurel's sake), or consuming vast amounts of frozen dairy products, gave way to something else entirely. It gave way to the beginnings of a love that would span nearly a decade. A love that, despite Tommy and Laurel's best efforts, could not be extinguished.

A glance over at Laurel now confirmed it. For all her bravado and showmanship, Laurel couldn't hide the truth from her eyes, they were laden with sadness, regret, and something Tommy couldn't quite pinpoint, so he dubbed it as pity. She knew the truth about how he felt and so did he. But she chose to play if off as meaningless and untrue because he was _the_ Tommy Merlyn, playboy extaordinaire. It didn't matter that he wasn't nearly the Romeo Oliver had been. It didn't matter how deep his feelings ran, at least, not to her.

Laurel and Oliver had been in the off-again phase of their relationship for quite some time when Oliver disappeared, but even then she could never come close to feeling for Tommy what she had once felt for Oliver. Even when Tommy showed up at Laurel's door one evening, soaking and chilled from driving his convertible with the top-down in an October storm, to make the grand gesture, the proclamation of the truest love he had ever known, to let her know that despite her doubts she would forever be the _only_ one for him, she could not accept his love. His only response had been Laurel's tear-laden eyes and a door closing in front of him. It's funny now, or so Tommy thinks, because even when Oliver had seemingly bowed out of the race, Tommy still couldn't win. The memory of Oliver haunted everyone, alive or dead.

"I meant when it came to Felicity," Laurel said, pulling Tommy back to the here and now. "I mean its 'Oliver and Felicity'. It always has been. We all knew it even back in high school. Even _I knew_ it I think. I just had tunnel vision and I couldn't really step back from it all. You know?"

Tommy nodded. He did know.

Even when he only knew Felicity as the girl that sometimes tutored Oliver and sometimes hung out with Thea, he knew there was something about them that ran deeper than anyone knew, or that they let on. He suspected it the first time they met. At the time though, he had brushed it off as flirting because that's what Oliver did with anyone of the opposite sex or maybe he had thought it was some form of pity for the girl from the wrong side of the tracks stuck in school with a bunch overly privileged rich kids.

That wouldn't have surprised Tommy. After all, Raisa and her kids lived in the glades and despite what the Queen's paid her, he knew and Oliver had both known it wasn't enough for a single mother raising three children. Tommy knew for a fact that Oliver would take her kids out for ice cream when he took Thea or would make sure to buy them Christmas presents from 'the Queen family'.

That's what Oliver did, he made things better with money. He cheated on Laurel – she was guaranteed dozens of long-stem red roses. He missed his mother's birthday because he was too drunk to remember – he purchased obscenely expensive jewelry from Cartier. He forgot to pick up Thea from lacrosse practice after school – he bought out a private movie theatre for the day for her and her friends.

But then Ryan Hemsby decided that he was going to 'fake-ask' Felicity out to prom for a bet and the next day he mysteriously showed up with a black eye.

For which, Ryan soon decided to get some vengeance by setting up Oliver for a fuck-up that would have surely ended up in him being suspended from school. But then again, equally mysteriously, he showed up to school to find his less than respectable internet search history being plastered on every locker in the school. Needless to say, Ryan was the one that ended up being suspended.

From that day forward, it was an unspoken rule that no one touched Felicity and no one dared to even threaten Oliver. It just was. They barely spoke to each other in school, but they were a team.

Looking back, he blames his hormone-riddled teenage brain for not seeing it, but now it was almost painfully clear. The way his eyes tracked her as she moved across the room. The small smiles she sent his way when she thought no one else but Oliver was looking. Oliver's grades steadily improving, Felicity slowly coming out of her shell. They had been best friends for years before Felicity even managed to make it on to Tommy's radar.

"Have you seen him?"

Tommy placed his head into folded hands. "Not yet."

"He's been back for almost 48 hours Tommy."

Tommy raised an eyebrow in response.

"I'm just saying I'm surprised. You two are practically brothers."

She placed a hand on his shoulder, heat radiating through the layers of clothes, leaving an unseen imprint he knows he will feel for days after.

"Don't be afraid," said Laurel. "Nothing on earth will change what you two are to each other. Whatever Ollie has been through he could never forget how important you are to him. I don't know what you'll find when you see him again, but I do know that whatever Ollie is going to go through now, he's going to need his brother by his side. You need to go to him Tommy."

He swiped an errand tear away and nodded sharply.

Laurel shifted her hand to his cheek and let her thumb run its course across the day old stubble and Tommy let himself lean into her caress. He allowed himself to have one moment, this moment. He savoured it. He didn't know what the future held for him, for them, so for this moment, he let go of the future and breathed the present in deeply.

And then he let it go.

"I've got to go," Tommy replied, the corners of his lips almost touching Laurel's ghosting fingers.

Her hand was withdrawn as quickly as it had appeared.

"Sober up before you see him, Tommy," Laurel's voice carried across the bar as he made his way to the door.

She was right. He needed to sober up first.

Lincoln, a podgy old man with sage eyes, and Tommy's driver since Tommy was in diapers, nodded kindly as Tommy entered the back of the black SUV.

God bless Lincoln because he didn't say a word. He always knew where Tommy had to be. He also knew the difference between where Tommy had to be and where he needed to be. So he simply began to navigate through Starling City rush hour traffic and drove toward the edge of the Glades, toward Felicity's townhouse.


End file.
